James Bertrand Payne and the Demise of the Moxon Firm

Cheshire, Jim

doi:10.1057/978-1-137-33815-0_6

Jim Cheshire²

170 Accesses

Abstract

In 1864, James Bertrand Payne was appointed manager of the Moxon firm. He adopted an overtly commercial approach to publishing and commissioned a series of Christmas gift books in order to exploit Tennyson’s popularity. Payne’s tactics brought him into conflict with Tennyson, particularly over a lavish edition of Idylls of the King, illustrated by the French artist Gustave Doré. This book is normally accepted as a success but it was in fact a conspicuous failure and an important factor in the subsequent bankruptcy of Edward Moxon and Sons. Payne’s extensive investment in this edition became ruinous when Tennyson changed publisher and Payne was subsequently convicted of fraud as he tried to cover his losses.

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Notes

1.
Alfred Tennyson, The Poems of Tennyson, 2nd edn, ed. by Christopher Ricks, 3 vols (London: Longman, 1987), III, p. 11 (Tennyson 1987). Sections of this chapter were originally published in Jim Cheshire, ‘The Fall of the House of Moxon: James Bertrand Payne and the Illustrated Idylls of the King’, Victorian Poetry 50.1 (Spring 2012), 67–90 (Cheshire 2012a).
2.
Moxon v Payne, ICLR: Chancery Appeal [1872.M.37] – (1873) L.R. Ch.App.881.
3.
Hallam Tennyson, Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir, 2 vols (London: Macmillan, 1897), II, p. 43.
4.
For the original letter see Alfred Tennyson, The Letters of Alfred Lord Tennyson, ed by Cecil Y. Lang and Edgar F. Shannon Jr. 3 vols (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982–1990), II, p. 456. (Tennyson 1982–1990)
5.
Hallam Tennyson, Memoir, II, p. 63.
6.
Hallam Tennyson, ‘Materials for a Life of Alfred Tennyson’, 4 vols, 1894–1895, annotated typescript, TRC/BC/5102. Examples of Hallam editing out Payne’s involvement can be found in III, pp. 71–2, 79, 101.
7.
Hallam Tennyson, Memoir, II, p. 77.
8.
Charles Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson (London: Macmillan, 1968), p. 376 (Tennyson 1968).
9.
June Steffensen Hagen, Tennyson and his Publishers (London: Macmillan, 1979), p. 113 (Hagen 1979).
10.
‘Court of Chancery, Lincoln’s-Inn, June 11’, The Times [London, England] 13 June 1873, 12 [online] The Times Digital Archive. [accessed 13 April 2016].
11.
J.S.R. ‘Preface’, in The Story of Elaine Illustrated in Facsimile from Drawings by Gustave Doré (London: E. Moxon, Son & Co., 1871).
12.
Letters of Tennyson, II, p. 489.
13.
Helen Groth, Victorian Photography and Literary Nostalgia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 153 (Groth 2003).
14.
Victoria Olsen, From Life: Julia Margaret Cameron and Victorian Photography (London: Arum Press, 2003), p. 232 (Olsen 2003).
15.
Harold Merriam, Edward Moxon, Publisher of Poets (New York: Columbia University Press, 1939), p. vii (Merriam 1939). In 1874 James Bertrand Payne changed his name to Payen-Payne apparently at the request of ‘a Norman branch of the family’ but probably also to distance himself from the financial scandal. His son styled himself ‘James Bertrand de Vincheles Payen-Payne’ – for the sake of clarity only the son will be referred to as Payen-Payne. The brief memoir of Payne can be found in an introduction to one of his father’s articles ‘“Jersey”: De Vincheles Payen-Payne’, ‘Introduction’ in The Jersey Society in London Occasional Publications 4 (1927) pp. 1–13. A copy can be found in the British Library, London, UK, pressmark A.C.8141. Merriam is acknowledged in a footnote on page 4.
16.
Merriam, Edward Moxon, p. 194; ‘Law Report’.
17.
Hans Ostrom, ‘Moxon, Edward’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography [online] http://www.oxforddnb.com/article/19463 [accessed 24 April 2009].
18.
Payen-Payne, ‘Introduction’, p. 3.
19.
James Bertrand Payne, An Armorial of Jersey (Jersey, 1859–65); James Bertrand Payne, The Gossiping Guide to Jersey (London: 1863).
20.
For Moxon family history, see the website of his descendent: John Moxon, ‘Edward Moxon 1801–1858’, A Moxon Family Website [online] http://homepage.ntlworld.com/john.moxon/edwardmoxon.html [accessed 29 March 2016].
21.
Payen-Payne, ‘Introduction’, p. 4.
22.
‘Court of Chancery’.
23.
‘Court of Chancery’.
24.
Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere, WLMS G 4/5/1, letter, Emma Moxon to William Wordsworth, 5 February 1864.
25.
‘Court of Chancery’.
26.
‘Court of Chancery’.
27.
Letters of Tennyson, II, p. 516.
28.
TRC/Letters/7973 is an account from Messrs White Broughton and White (Tennyson’s solicitors) ‘As to business in relation to Messrs Moxon & Co. ceasing to act as your publishers’. Entries between 5 January 1870 and 10 December 1870 describe legal services provided, sums were claimed in relation to various issues and publications including the illustrated Idylls of the King, the illustrated Enoch Arden, a mortgage relating to Hadyn’s Dictionary of Dates and Routledge’s right to publish remaindered books.
29.
Stana Nenadic, ‘The Small Family Firm in Victorian Britain’, Business History 35.4 (1993), 91 (Nenadic 1993).
30.
Alfred Tennyson, A Selection from the Works of Alfred Tennyson (London: Moxon, 1865); ‘Advertisement’, The Athenaeum 1933 (12 November 1864), p. 645.
31.
TRC/LETTERS/7889.
32.
‘Advertisement’, The Athenaeum 1933 (12 November 1864), p. 645, British Periodicals [online] http://www.proquest.com/[accessed 15 December 2016]; the series has a complex publishing history, only partially understood by St Clair (Reading Nation, p. 716), it was relaunched as ‘Moxon’s Popular Poets’ in c. 1870 but by the mid-1870s was actually published by Ward, Lock and Co. who had taken over the assets of the Moxon firm after the fraud trial, the latter publisher did not have the right to publish Tennyson’s work and so the selection from Tennyson’s work was cut from the later series.
33.
The initial advert (‘Advertisement’, The Athenaeum 1933 (12 November 1864), p. 645) has ‘Moxon’s Miniature Poets’ in large, bold typeface with ‘Containing selections from the works of Alfred Tennyson’ in much smaller letters below.
34.
‘Court of Chancery’.
35.
William Michael Rossetti, Some Reminiscences of William Michael Rossetti, 2 vols (London: Brown Langham and Co., 1906), II, p. 406. Rossetti was working on the series when the firm was declared bankrupt in the early 1870s and so his involvement probably dates from the later 1860s.
36.
Edmund M. B. King, ‘Leighton, John [Luke Limner]’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography [online] http://www.oxforddnb.com/article/61656 [accessed 7 Jan 2016], see also Edmund M. B. King, Victorian Decorated Trade Bindings 1830–1880 (London: British Library and Oak Knoll, 2003), p. xiv (King 2003).
37.
The new imprint Edward Moxon & Co. was adopted after Edward Moxon’s death and used consistently on their publications from 1864.
38.
‘A list of books published by Edward Moxon & Co., Dover St.’ (London: Moxon, October 1866), p. 7.
39.
Hallam Tennyson, Memoir, II, p. 19.
40.
‘The Captain’ was probably written 1833–1834 (Poems of Tennyson ed. by Ricks, II, p. 27–8); ‘On a Mourner’ was written in 1833 (Poems of Tennyson ed. by Ricks, I, p. 610); ‘Home they brought him slain with spears’ was an adaption of the Princess lyric ‘Home they brought her warrior dead’ (Poems of Tennyson ed. by Ricks, III, p. 592); ‘Three Sonnets to a Coquette’ were written c. 1836 (Poems of Tennyson ed. by Ricks, II, p. 78).
41.
Charles Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, p. 376.
42.
Alfred Tennyson, Enoch Arden with Illustrations by Arthur Hughes (London: Moxon, 1866), the edition was released in December 1865 but forward dated to 1866. ‘Advertisement’, The Reader, 6, no. 150 (11 November 1865), p. 532, British Periodicals [online] http://www.proquest.com/ [accessed 17 March 2016].
43.
Leonard Roberts, Arthur Hughes: his Life and Works (Woodbridge: Antique Collectors Club, 1997), pp. 162–3 (Roberts 1997).
44.
Roberts, Arthur Hughes, pp. 22–3.
45.
Roberts, Arthur Hughes, p. 256.
46.
Letters of Tennyson, II, p. 456.
47.
Alfred Tennyson, Elaine, illustrated by Gustave Doré (London: Edward Moxon, 1867); Alfred Tennyson, Guinevere, illustrated by Gustave Doré (London: Edward Moxon, 1867); Alfred Tennyson, Vivien, illustrated by Gustave Doré (London: Edward Moxon, 1867); Alfred Tennyson, Enid, illustrated by Gustave Doré (London: Edward Moxon, 1868). Elaine and Enid were forward dated, the former released late 1866, dated 1867 and the latter released late 1867, dated 1868.
48.
Letters of Tennyson, II, p. 428.
49.
Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Poetry, Pictures and Popular Publishing: the Illustrated Gift Book and Victorian Visual Culture 1855–1875 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2011), pp. 207–22 (Kooistra 2011).
50.
‘Enoch Arden’, The Athenaeum, 1991 (23 December 1865), 894.
51.
‘Enoch Arden’, The Athenaeum, 1991 (23 December 1865), 894.
52.
Simon Cooke, ‘Victorian book illustrators as book cloth designers, 1850–70: Richard Doyle and Arthur Hughes’ http://www.victorianweb.org/misc/cooke.html [accessed 21 January 2016]. The reverse of the title page states ‘The illustrations and cover from drawings by Arthur Hughes’.
53.
‘Illustrated Gift Books’, The London Review of Politics, Society, Literature, Art, and Science 11, no. 286 (23 December 1865), 675–6, British Periodicals [online] http://www.proquest.com/ [accessed 17 February 2016].
54.
See ‘Advertisement’, The Athenaeum, 2104 (22 February 1868): 270, British Periodicals [online] http://www.proquest.com/ [accessed 3 March 2016] and ‘Advertisement’, The Athenaeum, 2105 (29 February 1868): 338, British Periodicals [online] http://www.proquest.com/ [accessed 3March 2016] Bicker and Sons ‘List of Cheap Books on Sale’ lists the book at just 2s reduced from a published price of 21s, although this may have been as misprint as a more prominent advert just a week later advertised it at 9s.
55.
‘Doré’s Elaine’, Art Journal 6 (1867), 51–2 (p. 51).
56.
The Holy Bible with illustrations by Gustave Doré, 2 vols (London: Cassell, Petter & Galpin, 1866–70). The information regarding prices and formats was taken from an advertisement on the British Library’s copy pressmark: L.10.d.1.
57.
‘Doré’s Elaine’, 52.
58.
Juan Miguel Zarandona, Los Ecos De Las Montoñas De José Zorilla U Sus Fuentes De Inspiración: De Tennyson a Doré (Valadolid: Univeridad de Valladolid, 2004) (Zarandona 2004). I am very grateful to the author for discussing his research with me.
59.
British Library, London, UK, Add. Ms. 54986, f.213. Emily Tennyson, letter to Alexander Macmillan, 25 May 1868. She also seems to be referring to this incident in Hallam Tennyson, ‘Materials for a Life’ III, p. 101 ‘After Mr —–‘s conduct in the H. affair it was impossible to continue.’
60.
The English Catalogue of Books for 1866 (London: Sampson Low, Son, and Marston, 1867), p. 54.
61.
Dan Malan, Gustave Doré: Adrift on Dreams of Splendour (St. Louis: Malan Classical Enterprises, 1995), p. 97 (Malan 1995); Eric Zafran, ‘Doré’s Subjects’ in Fantasy and Faith: the Art of Gustave Doré, ed. Eric Zafran (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007) p. 99 (Zafran 2007).
62.
The English Catalogue of Books for 1867 (London: Sampson Low, Son, and Marston, 1868), p. 51.
63.
‘Advertisement’, The Orchestra 11, no. 263 (10 October 1868), 48, British Periodicals [online] http://www.proquest.com/ [accessed 9 March 2016]
64.
Anthony D. King, “George Godwin and the Art Union of London 1837–1911”, Victorian Studies 8.2 (1964): 101–30 (King 1964).
65.
The Crystal Palace Doré Art Union Idylls of the King, Tennyson-Dore: distribution of the original drawings to ‘Elaine’ (London: Edward Moxon, c. 1868), p. 2. Copy at TRC/BC/4477.
66.
Crystal Palace Doré Art Union, p.1.
67.
Hallam Tennyson, Materials for a Life, III, p. 49.
68.
Emily Tennyson, Lady Tennyson’s Journal, ed. James Hoge (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1981), p. 238 (Tennyson 1981).
69.
Emily Tennyson, Journal, p. 271.
70.
Emily Tennyson, Journal, p. 258. Letters of Tennyson, II, p. 452. Tennyson’s letter translates approximately to: ‘Allow me Sir, to share the great pleasure that your illustrations to my Idylls have already given me. I had not seen the four brought here by Mr Payne, and it seems to me that they have a sad and noble beauty that fits perfectly with the great old legends, and Mr Payne has written to me that he has others even more beautiful that could not be improved upon’.
71.
Letters of Tennyson, II, p. 456.
72.
Hallam Tennyson, Memoir, II, p. 77.
73.
Kooistra, Poetry, Pictures and Popular Publishing, pp. 61–2.
74.
British Library, London, UK, Add. Ms. 42577, f.229, Alfred Tennyson, letter to James Bertrand Payne, 28 October 1866.
75.
Letters of Tennyson, II, p. 456.
76.
Letters of Tennyson, II, p. 489.
77.
Letters of Tennyson, II, p. 489.
78.
Payen-Payne, ‘Introduction’, p. 13.
79.
British Library, London, UK, Add. Ms. 54986, f.211. Emily Tennyson, letter to Alexander Macmillan, 25 April 1868.
80.
British Library, Add. Ms. 54986, f.212. Emily Tennyson, letter to Alexander Macmillan, 30 April 1868.
81.
British Library, London, UK, Add. Ms. 54986, f.215. Emily Tennyson, letter to Alexander Macmillan, 31 May 1868.
82.
Hagen, Tennyson and his Publishers, pp. 114–7; Robert Bernard Martin, Tennyson the Unquiet Heart (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), pp. 476–7 (Martin 1980); Peter Levi, Tennyson (London: Macmillan, 1993), p. 257; Michael Thorn, Tennyson (London: Little, Brown & Co., 1992), p. 391–2; Charles Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, p. 376.
83.
Letters of Tennyson, II, p. 467.
84.
Emily Tennyson, Diary, 2 vols TRC/M/50, II, p. 106. Hoge’s transcription of this passage is inaccurate.
85.
‘Vivien. – Guivevere. By Alfred Tennyson. Illustrated by Gustave Doré. (Moxon&Co.)’ The Athenaeum, 2095 (21 December 1867), 844–5.
86.
‘Doré’s Elaine’, 52.
87.
Payen-Payne, ‘Introduction’, p. 6; An Artist, ‘Tennyson and M. Doré’ letter printed in The Athenaeum 2097 (4 January 1868), 26; Henry Blackburn, ‘Tennyson and M. Doré’ letter printed in The Athenaeum 2098 (11 January 1868), 64; Another Artist ‘Tennyson and M. Doré’, letter printed in The Athenaeum 2100 (25 January 1868), 138; ‘Our Literary Table. A Concordance of the Entire Works of Alfred Tennyson. P.L., D.C.L. By D. Baron Brightwell. (Moxon and Sons.)’ Athenaeum 2189 (9 October 1869), 462–3.
88.
‘Court Of Chancery’.
89.
‘Court Of Chancery’.
90.
‘Court Of Chancery’.
91.
Alfred Tennyson, Idylls of the King illustrated by Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale (London: Hodder and Stroughton, 1911).
92.
The Western Mail (Cardiff), 178 (24 November 1869), 2; ‘From a London Correspondent’, Leeds Mercury, 10874 (15 February 1873), 12.
93.
William Michael Rossetti, Reminiscences 2 vols (London: Brown Langham & Co. 1906), II, p. 359.
94.
Payen-Payne, ‘Introduction’, p. 9.
95.
‘In Bankruptcy’, Pall Mall Gazette No. 8648 (8 December 1892), 6.

Select Bibliography

Cheshire, Jim, ‘The Fall of the House of Moxon: James Bertrand Payne and the Illustrated Idylls of the King’, Victorian Poetry 50.1 (Spring 2012a), 67–90.
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Cheshire, J. (2016). James Bertrand Payne and the Demise of the Moxon Firm. In: Tennyson and Mid-Victorian Publishing. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-33815-0_6

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-33815-0_6
Published: 26 October 2016
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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